


No Cover Charge

by EllieMurasaki



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: spnquotefic, Episode: s05e22 Swan Song, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-20
Updated: 2010-07-20
Packaged: 2017-10-10 16:59:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/102022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/EllieMurasaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Dean's building a life here, from the ground up. Just like he's going to build that bar.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	No Cover Charge

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "I Love This Bar" by Toby Keith (the veterans talk about their battle scars).

Midafternoon. Midsummer. Ben's playing a baseball game. Dean's sitting on the sidelines, cheering when Lisa does, but without his snark and bravado to draw the eye away, the sleight-of-hand he uses to conceal his thoughts is pitifully easy to see through.

Sam. Mom. Dad. Adam. Ben. Adam. Sam.

Late evening. Late fall. Dean's eating dinner at Lisa's before he works the night shift at the bar. It's not the best place for a theoretically-recovering alcoholic to work, but the other options all involve background checks.

This is the best choice. Really.

Midnight. Midwinter. Between a waitress going into labor, a busboy coming off worse in a fight with a patron, and the manager forgetting how to drive on ice, Dean's just about running the bar by himself.

He's good at it.

Early morning. Early spring. Dean's poking around a property for sale, a restaurant that went under a while back. Sam can, he thinks, see what Dean sees: tables here, pool tables there, bar along that wall. The sort of place they almost lived in, between hunts. If word gets out about who's running the place (and nobody tries to kill Dean), maybe the sort of place Ellen ran.

Dean's building a life here, from the ground up. Just like he's going to build that bar. Sam can't be part of it. He can't think of a single thing he's ever touched that he didn't ruin—Mom, Dad, Dean, Sam; even Adam, even the Impala, even the whole fucking world—

Dean walked away from all of it, and Sam told him to go. Sam won't stay. He doesn't even know why he came.

That's a lie.

The sound of wind on cloth is the only warning Sam has to duck, block, swing, sweep, pin Dean to the ground. Sam hasn't been in Dean's line of sight once, he's sure of that—

"Easy, tiger," Dean says. He's afraid. That it might not be Sam, that it might be: Sam can't tell which possibility worries Dean more.

"Dean," Sam answers. He's missed the feel of Dean's name on his lips. He's missed the sound of Dean's voice.

"You're scaring me," Dean says. Playing it like he's sure it's really Sam, then, which makes one of them.

Sam knows his line. "That's 'cause you're out of practice." Then he's flat on his back on the pavement staring up at Dean. Message received and acknowledged.

"So what are you doing here?" Dean asks, helping Sam up. "Since every other time I've seen you you're gone before I can come clock you one."

Which Dean isn't even trying to do. Sam stifles a laugh. "Looking for a beer?"


End file.
